November 6, 2017

Some Things Can't Be Explained

I’m not sure launching an artificial intelligence-based service counts as news. But Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference kicks off today so I’ll mention that they’ve announced “myEinstein” AI services that let non-developers create predictive models and chatbots. General release is due next summer. I’ll let you decide whether it’s a good idea for thousands (millions?) of Salesforce users to deploy automated systems with little oversight. But I’m certain that Salesforce’s apparent decision to refer to all its users as “Trailblazers” is just plain silly.

Naïve users might blindly trust an artificial intelligence system, but their more knowledgeable co-workers are often frustrated by AI’s inability to explain its decisions. Albert, an AI-based marketing platform, has addressed this with features that help users understand what the system is up to. It’s a collection of reporting features, not a single explanation of why the system took a particular action. A chatbot to answer that question is definitely one I'd like.

Speaking of inexplicable, here’s a study from Infographic World that finds infographics are effective. What’s inexplicable isn’t the conclusion but that the report isn’t accompanied by an infographic. Perhaps someone was being deliberately ironic. If so, they definitely get style points.

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